Toward the end of their Q&A session Thursday night, new Orioles manager Craig Albernaz and slugger Pete Alonso were asked who would be the team to beat this season.

“Hopefully us,” they said together.

That’s part of what made Thursday’s Meet the New O’s Q&A session at the Senator Theatre fascinating — not the obvious answer but the men giving it. If their prediction proves true, these two are going to have a lot to do with it and, perhaps more to the point, will get a lot of the credit.

The old faces aren’t gone — and any winning season will be driven by what the returning core produces — but these are the new faces of the Orioles. I think that’s the whole point of an event like Thursday’s.

It’s not a coincidence that the baseball-related kickoff of this calendar year for the Orioles featured these two. And, considering Alonso ended his free agent meeting with the Orioles last month in Orlando, Florida, by telling the club’s brass they were signing “the best mic guy in the show,” it’s no surprise it went well.

You could tell Albernaz was going to continue to be his authentic and unfiltered self when he said his minor league walk-up song was Eminem’s “Go to Sleep,” which is, well, not a lullaby. (And you could tell, when the mention of a new sound system at Camden Yards brought thunderous applause from the crowd, that they were speaking to die-hards.)

They talked about what drew them to Baltimore — the top-down commitment, the talent and in Alonso’s words the “unmatched care” that goes into making the Orioles a championship team. They revealed a mutual admiration for Mark McGwire. Both heartily looked forward to Albernaz’s first ejection and outlined their expectations for the club.

Alonso cracked his new skipper up at the recollection of the Florida game at South Carolina his freshman year in which he made three errors at third base because of all the “screaming rednecks” in the stands, prompting him to become the first baseman he is today. Alonso himself chuckled every time Albernaz let slip a bad word, which was certainly more than once. Albernaz referred to “the boys” only twice, which is low for him.

If you wanted to know what both are about, you found out at the Senator. Albernaz said he expects the Orioles’ players to be “the most prepared they’ve ever been stepping on the field in the big leagues … and they’re going to compete harder than they’ve ever competed.” Alonso outlined how he prepares to face a pitcher and how badly he wants to be a better version of himself than he has been to this point in his career.

Birdland Caravan, the spiritual successor to FanFest, exists to drum up enthusiasm for the coming season. This is one of those winters when, while the buzz has waned from the Orioles’ active November and December, there’s excitement already in place.

Albernaz’s hire is one source of that. He’s a fresh voice with a frighteningly large task. He and his staff have to get the homegrown Orioles core back to its best and playing winning baseball, something that hasn’t been the case since the middle of 2024.

Alonso is a much larger source, to be fair. He is a needle mover on the field with his consistent production and game-changing slug in the middle of the lineup, and he represents the club’s first massive free agency expenditure in the David Rubenstein era. He is an unquestioned star-level acquisition who has changed the perception of the Orioles locally and nationally.

To hear Alonso’s agent, Scott Boras, tell it, Albernaz’s presence made a difference as the Orioles pitched Alonso on their project at the winter meetings. Albernaz shared this week on “The Banner Baseball Show” that Alonso “was asking really great questions the whole time, so it was a great back-and-forth baseball conversation.”

Their partnership was referenced throughout Thursday’s event. Alonso said it was about “the vibe and the intent and sincerity around the conversations,” with Albernaz and Mike Elias’ answers to his questions not only containing the substance he was seeking but being delivered on a wavelength that matched his own personality.

What felt evident Thursday was how much of those matching vibes are going to resonate with the group they’re joining. Alonso and Albernaz respond to how difficult the big leagues are earnestly rather than portentously.

They are relentlessly trying to get better and haven’t lost sight of who they are — Albernaz very clearly scrappy and a little brash but thoughtful on matters of substance, and Alonso the kind of person who seems to truly believe the day-at-a-time-isms that help one survive a baseball season, with some perhaps intentionally corny humor mixed in.

In a way, it reminded me of Adley Rutschman, one of many Orioles who, yes, needs to play better but also needs to recover his spirit. He and his teammates’ success early on was almost defined by the joy they took in pursuing it.

The two men onstage will have a lot to do with restoring both form and fun for these homegrown Orioles, and their comfort in doing so Thursday, out front for this new era, will allow the core to do so in an environment where the focus isn’t on them.

The spotlight is now on Albernaz and Alonso in a way it was only ever on Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday and many of their peers.

So much of this group’s roots are so deep in the rebuild soil that it’s hard to separate them from how they arrived: the high draft picks and sole sources of hope through all those years of losing. They also drove the club’s resurgence in the middle of this decade and, fair or unfair, are tarnished by the playoff sweeps and last year’s collapse.

Albernaz and Alonso are unburdened by that. They’re only looking forward, and upward, and that’s worth a lot when a team needs to improve in the ways the Orioles do. Whether they do or not, it will be fascinating to think back on this event in a few years when we know whether these two delivered on their promise.

Championships are hard to come by. Many of the fans in there would settle for a brand of baseball similar to how Albernaz described the umpire ejections in his future: fun and electric.